Intro to Cons 101
by Twi Revenge of the Nerds
Summary: Conventions are a great place to meet your soulmate.


**Title: Intro to Cons 101**

 **Summary:** **Conventions are a great place to meet your soulmate**

 **Pairing: Edward/Bella**

 **Rating: M**

 **Word Count: 5064**

 **DISCLAIMER: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Edward

As I snapped a picture of the group of Naruto cosplayers posing in front of me, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, someone taking a picture of me. I smiled. The circle of life at a con. I didn't cosplay often. It made taking pictures more difficult when everyone was trying to get your picture. I was dressed fairly simply as Peter Parker, hoodie unzipped halfway to show off the Spiderman suit underneath. The camera added to the effect of course. This was my go-to cosplay. Sometimes I went as Jimmy Olsen but that was much less recognizable.

"Thanks, guys," I said to the group and fished one of my cards out of my pocket. _Edward Cullen, Photographer - WashGeeks_ it said. "I normally get pictures up on Facebook within the week. Please feel free to tag yourselves. See you guys at ECCC next week?" They nodded enthusiastically. We finished our goodbyes and I set off in search of other amazing cosplay. The group was immediately asked to pose by another photographer. Another reason why I didn't cosplay much. You didn't always get to enjoy the con. If you were really good, you rarely got to walk around. I liked my freedom. Plus, I had a job to do.

This particular con was new and still small. Only a couple halls and the main lobby. Nothing compared to Emerald City Comic Con which was the following weekend. Lots of people here were testing out their stuff for ECCC. Honestly, the WashGeeks crew should be home preparing but we were asked to come to this con by the showrunners to help spread the word, so here we were.

Jasper, my best friend, was cosplaying as Daryl Dixon, complete with a crossbow. He was currently posing with two blondes. I rolled my eyes. His Daryl always got him cute girls. I watched him pull out cards and give one to each girl after writing his phone number on them. He looked over and me and winked. I smiled and flipped him off.

I snapped a couple pictures of the crowd. It wasn't a bad turn out for a con in its second year. I hoped with our promotion it had a bigger turn out next year, though hopefully, they not schedule it right before ECCC.

WashGeeks was the love child of me and Jasper. We started it as a blog when we were freshman in high school, along with our friend Ben. We had always been into comics and movies and stuff. Jasper's mom was a seamstress and when cosplaying at conventions started to become a more mainstream thing, she started getting commissions. Which was how we got into attending cons. We were hooked from the moment we stepped into our first convention. It was everything we loved under one roof. From Star Wars to DC to video games to obscure horror movies. Jasper's twin Rosalie and her best friend Angie got sucked in too and we created the blog together. Thanks to a lot of hard work, six years later we had a huge following, in the hundreds of thousands of followers. Well, hard work and the extreme luck of Morena Baccarin coming across an article we wrote about her and retweeting it. Now it was a site that got press credentials and had advertisers and a store. We got invited to things like new conventions and local movie premieres. It was difficult sometimes with school but man, we loved it.

"So, we giving this place a good review?" Jasper sidled up beside me.

"Yea I think so. Have you checked out the artist's alley yet? Not bad. Lots of independent comics."

"Have you seen my sister?" He asked, surveying the crowd, not really paying attention to what I was saying.

"She's over there with Emmett and his group." I nodded toward their direction. Rosalie fell absolutely in love with cosplaying from the start. It fit in nicely with her need to always be the center of attention. As much as I hated to admit it because she was practically my sister, she had a body that looked like it came straight out of a comic book. She was born to dress up and pose. Her boyfriend Emmett belonged to a cosplay group that did charity events and every convention they raised money for the local children's hospital by having a photo booth. Today Emmett was Wolverine and Rose was Jean Grey. They were attracting a lot of attention. Rose was hot in her skin tight suit and Emmett was a giant, towering over every person in the hall.

"She's such a show-off." Jasper rolled his eyes.

"Look who's talking Mr. I wear cut off sleeves to get girls." I muttered. Jasper scoffed.

"Like dressing up as everyone's favorite nerdy hero doesn't get you phone numbers." He reached out and pinched my Spiderman suit. "Mr. Spandex." I pushed him.

"Emmett should have dressed as Colossus. It fits him better." I said, watching him take pictures with some kids dressed as various Xmen.

"Yea, but Wolverine is more recognizable. It helps draw people in."

"Have Peter and Garrett checked in?" Jasper pulled out his phone and pulled up the group chat.

"If you ever checked your phone, you'd know Peter is at a weapon making panel and Garrett is playing in a Munchkin tournament." I clicked a couple pictures of a guy dressed as Link from Legend of Zelda swinging his Master Sword in a large arc.

"I can't take pictures if my nose is buried in my phone," I muttered.

"Yea, yea. Starbucks when the con is over okay? I'm going to check out Artist's Alley." I nodded and Jasper smacked the back of my head as he walked away. Ass.

I took pictures of Emmett and his group and then walked around the rest of the con taking random pictures of the attendees and the stands. The head of the con, Eleazer, wanted shots of people enjoying his convention to use for promotion next year. I didn't have to try too hard, people seemed to be enjoying it. Mostly a younger crowd or families were in attendance. That was typical of smaller cons. ECCC was huge and crowded, it was easier for people with kids to have fun at cons like this one.

Once the convention ended, I packed up my camera and headed down the street to Starbucks. When I got there I noticed Jasper and Ben had already commandeered the corner that had two couches. Rose was sitting down, with Emmett right next to her. I dropped down on the couch between Jazz and the armrest. This was our favorite spot, and if someone was occupying it, we sent over Rose to flirt until we got it. It generally worked whether they were male or female.

Jasper had his little command center set up on the table. He was our tech guy; he built the website and kept it running. We were on the hunt for new talent because Rose and Angie had decided to branch off and form their own site geared more towards women. We didn't begrudge them for leaving. We got it, the nerd world was sometimes painfully male. We still worked together and helped each other out and Jasper was tech for their site as well.

"So, good news guys," Angie said as she sat down on Ben's lap. "We have two girls coming to tryout for the site during ECCC."

"Are they hot?" Jasper asked without looking up from his computer. Rose smacked him hard on the back of his head. "Ow! What the fuck Rosie?"

"You're a disgusting perv." She huffed.

"It's a legitimate question!" He argued. She pointed at him and gave him a hard look.

"You stay away from them."

"C'mon Rosie, leave him alone. He's still heartbroken over Maria dumping him." I said, chuckling slightly.

"She did not dump me, it was a conscious uncoupling."

"She consciously dumped your ass." Emmett piped up. Jasper scowled but didn't respond. He couldn't win this one. Peter and Garrett joined then, plopping down on the couch opposite me. Rose waited until they got settled to continue.

"Anyway. As Angie was beginning to explain, we have two girls coming for ECCC. A writer and a photographer. Bella and Alice. They run their own blog now and are moving here for college in the fall. We think they'd be a good addition." Rose explained.

"So be nice guys," Angie added. She looked more towards Peter. He could be a jackass.

"What's the blog called?" Jasper asked.

"Two Nerdy Girls." Angie said, and Jasper quickly pulled up their blog.

"Hmm, not bad for a non-paid site. They are organized, that's good." I peeked over his shoulder as he looked through the site.

"Nice. The photographer is talented. Maybe as much as me." I gloated as everyone rolled their eyes. Seriously, though whichever one of the girls was the photographer, she had some skills. "Jazz look! You're in the background of that shot." I pointed to a picture of a group of customers buying from a vintage comic stand. Jasper was dressed as Beast Boy, complete with green hair and skin. Though she hadn't been into cosplay, Maria was next to him as Raven. She looked uncomfortable in the picture.

"Oh yeah, that's ECCC last year. Huh. I hope she's cute because we might just be meant to be." Rose and Angie both threw napkins at him.

"Do they have profiles?" I asked, shallowly hoping that we were in fact hot. Not that I was pervy and looking to get laid like Jazz but I had been single for a while and it would be nice to finally date someone that didn't think my nerd stuff was a waste of time.

"Yup." He pulled up and About Me section but there were no pictures. Just that they were seniors, lived in Washington, and that they'd founded the blog five years ago. The standard that didn't really give anything away. Since they were seniors in high school, I guessed their parents forbade them from putting identifiable information on the site. Not that I blamed them. Bella was the writer and Alice the photographer. Hats off to Alice then for her awesome pictures.

"So, Alice is the name of my future wife." Jazz said.

"What if she's ugly? Or fat?" Peter joked. "Not that you could turn down a fat girl at this point. How long has it been?" Yea, Peter was in extra asshole mode. He was like this a lot, if it wasn't for Garrett, we probably would've gotten rid of him by this point. They were a package deal, an awkward couple that fought almost as much as Rose and Jasper but apparently, they loved each other.

"How dare you insult the future Mrs. Hale. She's beautiful, I just know it. I love her already."

"Great. Now that that's settled, Emmett and I are going to go. I need regular clothes on." Rose got up to leave. Our little group broke up after that, cons were exhausting and we all wanted to get home to rest. We made plans to meet up the next day to start planning for ECCC, which started in only a few days.

Jazz and I went home to the off-campus apartment that we shared. He went straight to the tv to play video games. He tossed me a controller.

"Don't you have homework?" I asked as I threw back the controller.

"Yup. But I need to come down from my con high."

"Yea okay, dude." I was shocked Jasper got decent grades, he never seemed to do his work. I went to my own room to start editing pictures. I took way too many as usual. After a few hours, I got about halfway done when I took a break to check my phone. Scroll, scroll scroll, nothing interesting. Pics of friends that went to the beach or out clubbing or frat parties. Things I didn't do because I was always busy with school and the site. Not that I felt like I missed out. I enjoyed doing what I did.

I noticed my ex Jessica posted a picture of herself with under the Rodeo Drive road sign. Our breakup was not a conscious uncoupling. Much to my surprise, she dumped me after graduation to move to California to be an actress. That had been almost a year ago. I sighed and put down my phone. I wasn't in the mood to edit after that. I decided to pull up the Two Nerdy Girls site, I had to admit I was curious about these girls that were going to be joining our little nerd family.

I read a few articles and wished I could see a picture of the author. There was a really cute brunette in a few pictures but there was no indication who she was. At least I knew she wasn't the photographer, Jasper and I might have to fight. She should be a professional writer. I agreed with her take on the new Hellboy plotline. Her insight on Wonder Woman made me see a different side. I completely forgot about editing my pictures and stayed up half the night reading most of the articles on the blog I went years back and could see the improvement in her writing and where they had found their niche as blog. Maybe I was a bit in love with her like Jazz was the photographer. I suddenly couldn't wait to meet her.

Bella

"Okay, they said it was the one just past the convention center." Alice consulted the GPS on her phone, "And the convention center is that way." She pointed left. We were standing next to a giant flower pot outside our hotel. At least we had a landmark to help us. "You ready?"

I shrugged and motioned for her to lead the way. I nervously fingered the strap on my messenger bag as we walked through the unfamiliar city. Alice was taking it all in; eyes wide, a smile spread across her face, her camera around her neck. We had been to Seattle before for conventions, but always with parents carting us around. This was our first weekend on our own and it was such an important weekend it bordered on ridiculous. So important that I was freaking out. Before I knew it, we were in front of the familiar Starbucks sign.

"Ready?" She asked me as we approached the door.

"As I'll ever be I guess." I shrugged again, anxious. She grabbed my upper arms and radiated enthusiasm at me.

"We are going to blow them away. They are going to love us." Alice was always so positive. I was the Debbie downer of our two-person clique. She spent her time in a fantasy world of sunshine and rainbows, while I kept us firmly in reality. We balanced each other.

She started to pout. I was immune to her sad puppy looks by now, it was easy to see why she always got whatever she wanted. She looked like she walked out of every fanboy's favorite anime. She was petite with big doe eyes. Her creamy white skin was practically flawless thanks to her rigid skin care regimen. Her pixie hair dyed pink for the weekend, which only added to the fantasy, and was on purpose of course. She knew how to work her looks to her benefit. "Say it with me. We're going to be awesome." The some in awesome came out a little sing-songy.

"We're going to be awesome." I sighed heavily. Her smile fell. I hated seeing her frown, so I threw my arms around her in fake joy. "We are going to be the best two fucking convention bloggers in the history of forever. Better?" Alice's face was never meant to frown, especially not because of my lack of self-confidence.

"Absolutely." She giggled as we walked arm in arm into the coffee shop. We both inhaled deeply, enjoying the smells. There was no Starbucks back home in Forks, there was a coffee shop but it pales in comparison. After getting our high off the aromas, we looked around for the people we were to meet, Rosalie Hale and Angela Webber.

Alice and I ran what we referred to as a nerd blog. We went to conventions and wrote movie and comic book reviews and other pop culture type stuff. There wasn't much in Forks but our parents were so glad we weren't pregnant or on drugs like most of the other teenagers at our school, they were more than happy to indulge us.

We had a decent following on our own but we had been contacted by Rosalie and Angela to possibly work on their site, FemmeNerds. Their site was only slightly older than ours but it was big and official, with advertisers and a store where they sold nerdy accessories and cosplay stuff. It was a branch off from another even bigger site, WashGeeks, which had followers in the six digits.

FemmeNerds came with press credentials. Real actual press credentials! We were in Seattle on their dime and attending Emerald City Comic Con as an audition of sorts. We weren't getting paid but it meant free tickets, looked good on a resume and could open doors to paying jobs. The possibilities were so amazing that our parents only barely threw a fit about us missing two and a half days of school. Not like last semester of senior year mattered that much.

"Bella? Alice?" A tall, skinny brunette with purple cat's eye glasses approached us. "Hi, I'm Angela." She extended her hand to both of us. "It's so great to finally meet you! Rosie is getting coffee, you like caramel macchiatos, right? Here, have a seat." She was so cute and perky, with her Captain America dress and the pens in her ponytail. She led us to two couches with a table between them. There were laptops and papers everywhere, they'd clearly been here awhile. "Oh, excuse the mess, the day before a con is a nightmare." She attempted to organize the chaos.

While Angela bent over the table, the most alarmingly beautiful woman I've ever seen set four coffees in front of us. She was model tall, blonde, and curvy in all the right places to make it look like her dress was painted on her. A Loki dress, one I owned from Hot Topic but apparently tailored to her exact measurements.

"Hi!" She greeted us with a big friendly smile that was a bit disarming. She was rather intimidating looking. "I'm Rosalie, thank you so much for coming! How was the trip? Did you get checked in okay?" She sat down and grabbed one of the coffees.

"Oh, yes. The room is amazing. Thank you for this opportunity." Alice nudged me with her elbow.

"Um, yes. Thank you. We really appreciate this." I grabbed a coffee as well and took a sip, burning my tongue. I was so nervous. Writing for my own blog was one thing but there was already a certain quality expected from FemmeNerds. They had thousands of loyal followers. Nerds could be a nasty bunch, especially online; they had no remorse and they hated change. But my advisor told me if I wanted to be a successful writer, I needed to grow a thicker skin. Writing for such a big site seemed like throwing myself to the wolves. While I was excited to be given this chance, I was about thirty seconds from jumping ship.

Rosalie and Angela seemed to notice my hesitation. "I know we implied that this was an audition but it's kind of not." Angela tried to reassure me with a smile. "We have been following your blog for a while and we like what we see. We want you to work on our site. We plan on hiring you. We asked you here to make sure you like us and we can all work well together. ECCC is the biggest, most stressful convention we do." Angela motioned to Rose who nodded.

"Yea, please know that we are not professionals. I'm not even a writing or a journalism major." Rosalie explained. "We started doing this for fun on my brother's site, WashGeeks and after a while, we wanted to go into a more feminine direction. WG was becoming more a boy's club, not that they intended that." She added quickly. "My brother and his friends try to keep in it inclusive, but you know how that goes in the nerd word." Rose shrugged. Alice and I nodded knowingly.

"We've had quite a few people that didn't work out, we'd love someone to stick around for long-term and see where it goes. We know that you'll be a freshman next year and that will make things crazy, but we won't overload you. Honestly, we won't be asking more from you than what you already do. We also have two other girls that can help out if you guys can't do something. School comes first, obviously." She smiled brightly, looking like a toothpaste commercial. I laughed to myself, I liked these girls already. My unease was melting away in their presence. They were total opposites like Alice and me; we were great together. I glanced at Alice who was silently begging me to agree.

"Yea. Okay. Sounds great." I shrugged. Rosalie and Angela squealed, and we did a cheers with our coffee cups. We spent several hours working out the finer details of working ECCC; which panels they wanted us to attend, what they expected from our coverage.

Two grande macchiatos and a cake pop later, I was feeling comfortable. Rose was warm and friendly. She got into conventions because her mom is a seamstress and when she started getting cosplay commissions, Rose fell in love. Rose was studying fashion, made her own cosplay and often altered her clothing (hence the Loki dress that was totally banging on her). She made a lot of the accessories they sold on their site and their brother's. Angie was a genius, like a real one, my age but had graduated early. Her comic book knowledge was extensive; she probably knew more about Marvel than Stan Lee. Rose and Angie had been neighbors back home, best friends since diapers like Alice and me.

"Can I ask how you found our blog?" Alice asked as she took a bite of a Rice Krispie treat.

"We're from Port Angeles and we like to follow local things. We've partied a few times in Forks, and at the beach? Those were crazy." Rose laughed.

"That's actually La Push but yup, the beach was the place to be. We probably crossed paths at some point, Bella's ex practically owned that beach." Alice pointed at me with her stirrer. I groaned at the thought of Jake.

"Aw, recent breakup?" Angie reached across the table and patted my hand. I smiled weakly, I was not interested in a conversation about Jake. I didn't feel sad about the breakup, only upset that I wasn't more emotional about the end of a two-year relationship.

"There are going to be so many cute guys at ECCC that you'll forget what's his face. I'll have Emmett introduce you to some people."

"Who is Emmett?"

"He's Rosie's boy that she chased for like a year." Angie rolled her eyes as Rose kicked her.

"I don't chase boys, they chase me. It took Em a little bit longer to realize he wanted to chase me." She said as she primly smoothed her dress. "He belongs to one of those cosplay groups that does stuff for charity. I met him last year at ECCC and he dressed as the Hulk and as soon as I saw him in those ripped shorts, I knew he had to have me."

"Speaking of cute boys." Angie trailed off and started blushing like crazy as three boys descended upon us. One, blonde and skinny, jumped over the back of the couch and landed between Rose and Angie. Another waved shyly at Angela and dragged an empty chair over. The third, bronze haired and the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen on two legs, perched on the arm of the couch next to Rose. I practically had to force my head to turn away from him. The blonde one grinned at me but his eyes widened at the sight of Alice.

"Are you going to introduce us?" The blonde one laid his head on Rose's shoulder, which she quickly shrugged off.

"No." He gave her a puppy dog looked and she sighed dramatically.

"This is my annoying brother, Jasper, and his much less obnoxious friend, Ben." She pointed to one sitting next to Angela. "And equally as obnoxious friend, Edward. They run WashGeeks." She pointed up to the one sitting on the arm of the couch. Jesus Christ, he was beautiful. The shaggy, clearly not brushed hair, green eyes, long slender…everything. I wanted to lick his jawline, which was odd considering I had never had that desire with any guy, like, ever. He was wearing a Han Shot First shirt that had seen better days but fitted him perfectly. Alice kicked me in the ankle with the heel of her boot and I could feel myself turning into a tomato. Edward bit his lip and chuckled.

"This is Bella and Alice. They are visiting from Forks." Rose finished.

"Forks, huh? I've known a few Forks girls. They could really party." Edward reached over and smacked Jasper on the back of the head.

"Remember?"

"Yea, I remember. I think I would have remembered you, girls, though." Jasper zeroed in on Alice, smirking.

"Gross." Rose fake gagged and shoved her brother off her. "These are the girls I was telling you about? That run the blog? They are not here for you."

"Yet." Jasper winked at Alice and she blushed. Alice didn't blush. She made other people blush. I couldn't believe that Alice was falling for it. I guess I wasn't one to talk, considering I was two seconds from launching myself at Edward and ripping that t-shirt off.

"You're disgusting." Rose covered his face with her hand and pushed him back into the couch. "Sorry about him. He's adopted."

"I'm your twin!" He cried out from behind Rose's hand. She pushed him further back into the couch and stuck her tongue out at him. "Edward help!" Edward laughed and held up his hands in surrender.

"Sorry dude, I don't want to lose an appendage," Edward said, amused.

"Oookay." Angela moved away from the wrestling siblings to sit next to me. "They do this a lot. You are welcome to stay and watch them bicker, but Ben and I have plans." She began to pack up her stuff.

"Doors open at ten, the press gets in at nine. We'll meet here at around eight thirty? That way we can caffeinate." She smiled warmly at us.

"I'm so excited to work with you two!" She gave us each a quick hug and left with Ben.

Rose stopped abusing her brother long enough to wave goodbye to Angela. "Oh shit, I have to go. Em is waiting! We were having so much fun, I didn't realize what time it was!" Rose quickly gathered her things. "Are you guys ok to get back to your hotel? I can give you cab fare."

"We can get them back Rose, it's only down the street," Jasper said, smiling at Alice again. "If that's ok with the ladies?"

"The ladies?" Rose repeated sarcastically. "Gross. Are you guys okay with that? It's getting dark and Seattle is a strange city to you."

"Rose, it's about a fifteen-minute walk. We can handle it." Edward rolled his eyes. "Plus we have to go that way, precon party."

"It's totally fine," Alice said. She was locking eyes with Jasper and smiling like a goof.

"Gotcha. I will see you guys tomorrow then. Eight-thirty sharp!" Rose took off after blowing us a kiss and we were left with Jasper and Edward. God, Edward was frick-frackin' hot.

"So…" Edward trailed off. It was awkward, all of us staring silently. Alice and Jasper were making goo-goo eyes at each other.

"Let's get these beautiful women home safely," Jasper said, standing up and offering an arm to Alice, which she literally bounced up to take. I rolled my eyes. She always wanted to be the heroine of her own young adult novel, she was all about the love at first sight. I noticed Edward was looking at Jasper with a similar expression.

Jasper and Alice took the lead and I followed closely behind with Edward beside me. I didn't know what to say. He kind of flustered me with this attractiveness. He was too pretty to be into me. We didn't anything to each other the entire walk, but it wasn't exactly uncomfortable. In fact, it was...nice. I noticed that we walked in sync.

Jasper kept talking in a low voice to Alice, I wasn't sure what he was saying but I heard her giggling. Her flirty giggle was high and light, like bells. I didn't have a flirty laugh. I had a loud guffaw that has been compared to Roseanne's. Whatever.

When he reached the hotel, Jasper actually bowed and kissed Alice's hand. "Ma'am"

"Really," I said under my breath. Edward must have heard me because he let out a short laugh. I smiled.

"See you guys tomorrow?" He asked.

"Yea, of course." I shrugged. I gotta stop doing that all the time! It was my go-to thing when I was nervous. Made me look like I had a twitch.

"I looked forward to working with you." He smiled a crooked smile and I practically melted right there and then.

"Yes." I sighed dreamily. "Me too. I mean, with you. Working with you. I look forward to it too." I stumbled over my words. He chuckled and waved goodbye. As he turned to leave he slung his arm around Jasper to drag him away.

"C'mon dude. We've got a party to crash." They walked off shoving each other down the street.

"Wow," Alice said as she watched them go. "This is going to be the best convention ever."

"Hell yeah." I agreed.


End file.
